I am not from here
Czesław Miłosz, Nobel Prize poet, wrote: "Wherever I am, in any place on earth, I hide from people the belief that I am not from here". And St. Augustine lamented: "Man's heart is restless until it rests in the Lord."
I touched Life the most when my mother was dying. I sat a hard chair by a hospital bed; semi-conscious with fatigue, regret and fear of "how it will be". And yet I have never experienced the reality of Life and the Communion of Saints more than just when my mother was dying.
It was like a soft touch that eluded me in the same second. But it left a more permanent mark than many "more real" memories. As if the veil was opened for a moment, revealing the reality of Life, which I have access to, but not yet fully… so it hurts. Mom stepped through the veil and I stayed on this side.
Sometimes we get such a longing, objectively unrelated to anything or anyone, but so strong that we have the impression that it is about to explode internally.
Such longing can be strongly and painfully concrete. Mystics describe this experience as a loving yearning for God Himself. Paradoxically, the closer you get to Him, the more you miss Him. The axis of suffering becomes the impossibility of fulfillment. The closer you get, the more excruciating this suffering is. Man is more and more ready for union, and it still does not complete. If this desire is in us and it is intensifying, then we are on the right track. This means that we have already been drawn by God and we are becoming more and more ready for holiness.
Tomorrow is the Feast of Heaven, the day after tomorrow is the Feast of Purgatory. May our hearts be united with them and filled with joyful longing for God.
Until Tomorrow
fr. george